Talk:UK phone hacking scandal: The News of the World didn't go far enough

From WikiLeaks

What a tendentious load of twaddle posted, no doubt, by the News of the World.

If the truth is indeed that so-called celebrities have been bugged on an "almost industrial scale" then the News of the World deserves the comeuppance it will likely get. Exposing government wrongdoing is one thing, but wrapping oneself in the flag of righteousness to cover such sleaze is another. Without a doubt the NoW has been one of the world's most titillating, prurient and celebrity-obsessed newspapers, and many ordinary decent people will cheer to see it eventually suffering the consequences of living by sword. The defence here is pathetic. The public doesn't care about who bought a story from someone who bought it far down the food chain? Oh really? This is why we still buy diamonds and ivory and tuna and wooden furniture as we always did is it? THAT doesn't wash any more for either fish or the news. If you're exposing government wrongdoing and you've got the goods fine, but it seems the NoW's obsession is with who is shagging whom, and that is simply squalid. To dignify such conduct with Jeffersonian quotes is self-delusion of a sort that is simply incomprehensible.

The UK parliament has shown that self-regulation doesn't work and the UK's press has confirmed it.

I expect to leaks to wikileaks not the bleating of slimeballs and buggers -- in the electrotechnical sense.

Contents

Stunning level of hypocrisy

It is amazing to see such a combination of propaganda and hypocrisy wrapped in self righteousness as displayed in this article by Julian Assange. One paragraph in particular exhibits the moral bankruptcy of revolutionary opposition to authority just for opposition's sake. The fifth paragraph starts with:

"The right to freedom of speech is not short hand for the right to pontificate."

Actually the freedom of speech is shorthand for the right to pontificate. It is not shorthand for the freedom to speak as long as you say something that Julian Asange wants to hear. After denying the right of freedom of speech in the form of pontificating, Asange goes on to exercise the very right he denies The Guardian. He goes on to pontificate:

"We defend speech freedoms for their connection to a deeper underlying concept—the Right to Know. Without understanding the world around us we can not function. Without an informed public, democracy has no meaning and civilization is adrift. Through understanding the truth about ourselves and the world around us, we are able to advance and survive. Ultimately our understanding depends on discovering primary sources. Everything else is speculation."

Primary sources without context can be just as misleading if not more so than reasoned discussion in secondary sources. The argument put forth at the beginning that: leaked phone messages has exposed corruption therefore, any attempt to prevent the publication of private or "leaked" phone conversations must be an attempt to conceal corruption, is a misleading logical fallacy of the worst kind. Despite this, it becomes the foundation for the rest of the article. The Italian Prime Minister's claim of trying to protect his citizen's right to privacy is dismissed based on the aforementioned fallacy.

"Berlusconi justified the new law by saying that the privacy of Italian citizens was threatened by the press."

I suspect that the writer would be first in line to protest against the invasion of privacy if the government published or otherwise misused recorded phone messages through something like the U.S government's Echelon program. It has been discouraging to see the speed at which WikiLeaks has declined since its' appearance in the public arena. The caliber of information "leaked" has steadily declined and it is quickly degenerating into little more than a venue for promoting personal agendas and vendettas against whatever group or institution has offended someone. Articles such as the one by Julian Assange does nothing more than help to undermine the legitimacy of WikiLeaks' stated goals.

Utter bullshit

"The actions of major newspapers are "voted on" every day by their readers. Whatever their faults, popular newspapers remain the most visible and the most democratically accountable institutions in the country. Their mandate to inform the public vastly exceeds that granted to the unelected and the rarely elected at Westminster, who are nonetheless quick to grant themselves a blanket exemption from all censorship. "
Come off it, most of the people who read the NotW or the Daily Mail wouldn't stop buying it if they included a free bag of anthrax with every purchase and insisted on referring to their readers as "cunts". The most visible? Tell me how many people can get inside a newspaper's main office, compared with the number that can watch parliament on television, listen to it on the radio or go to see it in person? The most democratic? Oh yeah, that's right - because newspapers give a fuck how many of their readers have written in to complain, and make this procedure so very easy.

Oh yeah, and their mandate - hahaha, pull the other one, it's got bells on. Read this very carefully: "Newspapers. Don't. Exist. To. Inform. You. They. Exist. To. Make. Money." The amount of sheer, unadulterated bullshit that gets published every single day, without being fact checked, without any attempt to tell the truth, in the mission to make as much money as possible, is mind-boggling. Their "mandate" has been abandoned, as it was decided long ago that morals and ethics didn't make money. Staff numbers have been cut drastically. Newspapers aren't making enough money. Actual investigative journalism is dying, and tapping into Alex Ferguson's mobile phone to try to get a scoop on if he's shagging one of his player's mistresses is illegal, not in the public interest, and immoral. I expected more from wikileaks. You have severely damaged your image with this piece.

???

Er - isn't the problem that phone tapping in the UK is illegal?

How?

And how did they do it? Any more infos? Maybe over Bluetooth, Bugs, higher/costly GSM hack? Tempest?

Basic stuff

Far simpler, they were retrieving voice messages from individuals phones who had not changed the default voice mail retieval PIN number.